Development of a rotary-wing test bed for autonomous flight

[摘要] This project developed a low-cost avionics system for a miniature helicopter to be used forresearch in the field of autonomous flight (UAVs).Previous work was done on a small, electrically powered helicopter with some success, but theoverall conclusion was that the vehicle was underpowered. A new vehicle, the Miniature AircraftX−Cell, was chosen for its ability to lift a larger payload, and previous work done with it by anumber of other institutions.An expandable architecture was designed to allow sensors and actuators to be arbitrarily added tothe system, based on the CAN standard. A CAN sensor node was developed that could digitize12 channels at up to 16 bit resolution and do basic filtering of the data. Onboard computing wasprovided by a PC/104 based computer running Linux, with additional hardware added tointerface with the CAN bus and assist with timing.A simulation environment for the helicopter was evaluated and shown to provide a good test bedfor the control of the helicopter. Finally, the avionics was used during piloted test-flights tomeasure data and judge the performance of both the modified helicopter and the electronics itself.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University